Conducting business with Patterson
As a leading full-service distributor, Patterson builds relationships with manufacturers and suppliers to ensure the highest quality products for our customers through its subsidiaries around the world. We source a complete range of everyday essentials and specialty products that dental and animal health customers need to run successful businesses.
Product safety
As we source, distribute and add value to services and products, we have an opportunity to make a positive impact on health and safety. We have comprehensive strategies for addressing the risks that are inherent to our business, in particular the distribution of pharmaceutical products to dental and veterinary practitioners. We have established strategies and processes to avoid unauthorized trading (gray market) and product diversion, and we follow the guidance of our manufacturing partners on claims related to their products.
Procurement standards
In order to deliver superior service performance and effective healthcare equipment, goods and value-add services to our customers, we stress reliability in all areas of our business. We want our suppliers to embody our core values and adhere to our supplier compliance standards.
Our vendor compliance standards
Patterson expects its suppliers, at all times, to conduct themselves in an ethical manner and to comply with applicable laws and regulations, including those relating to:
Corruption and unfair business practices. Corrupt practices – including public and private bribery and kickbacks – are not allowed. Sensitive data, proprietary information and intellectual property must be handled properly and legal requirements concerning competition, antitrust and truthful marketing shall be met. Corporate recordkeeping must be complete and accurate in all respects.
Prohibition of child and forced labor, human trafficking, and slavery. We have zero tolerance for forced child labor, human trafficking and slavery, and are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships. We are working to enhance systems and controls to identify, mitigate and remediate any social and compliance risks to our supply chain. These principles are outlined in our Code of Conduct and Partner Compliance Standards.
We rely upon our third-party compliance due diligence program to identify potential risks of forced and child labor, human trafficking and slavery. Information gathered through that process, including ongoing monitoring of approved third parties, is leveraged to evaluate effectiveness at preventing, detecting and remediating potential risks in our supply chain.
Health and safety. National, local, provincial or other relevant laws and regulations must be followed regarding the health and safety of workers, including but not limited to those relating to waste management, handling and disposal of chemicals and other dangerous materials, labeling, packaging and transportation.
Patterson’s global ethics and compliance program is overseen and managed by the chief compliance and regulatory officer, who reports directly to our CEO and indirectly to our board Compliance Committee.
Ethics and compliance
Patterson strives to operate with the highest standards of ethics and integrity and to continually improve and strengthen compliance at every level of our organization. We follow the U.S. Department of Justice’s compliance program recommendations for effective corporate compliance departments, with the board of directors and Patterson leadership driving expectations for strong compliance throughout the company.